


Love Magic in Tolbiacum

by the_little_owl



Category: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-24
Updated: 2012-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-31 16:50:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_little_owl/pseuds/the_little_owl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obivanos Zenobios might become the greatest builder of his time ... if he makes it to Rome, the centre of the Empire!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Magic in Tolbiacum

**Author's Note:**

> Since June, when I posted a picture of the love magic tablet from Zülpich, I wanted to write a story, how it was made and hidden in a graveyard of the former Roman small town Tolbiacum, an outpost of the Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (Cologne) in the province Germania Inferior.
> 
> The longer I pondered about a likely plot, the unlikier the result got, and finally my favourite boys from fanfiction - Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon - entered the stage. Like Tolbiacum changed its name over the centuries and became Zülpich, Obi-Wan changed into Obivanos Zenobios on his timetravel and became a budding architect instead of Jedi knight hopeful. 
> 
> Thanks to Tem-ve for the beta reading
> 
> ******

  
[](http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b319/little_owl/Liebeszauber_und_Ring.jpg)  
(The love magic tablet and the golden ring which was found next to it.)  
    
  
  
  
**** ****Love Magic in Tolbiacum** **   
  
The tiny bottle shattered, and perfume worth two hundred sesterces splattered onto the cobble stones in the town centre of Tolbiacum. Not yet satisfied with the destruction she had wrought, Cornelia crushed the shards with her sandal, making Obivanos wince.  
   
“Didn’t I tell you not to pester me?” she snapped. “I’m going to marry a Senator! A friend of the Emperor even! Not some lowly bricklayer! Get out of my sight! And take these back! They make me sneeze!”  
   
With that, his patron’s niece threw the bouquet of cornflowers at his face, turned on her heel and strode back to said patron’s summer holiday retreat – she and her gaggle of maidservants a blur of colourful silk shawls and _stolae_.  
   
Obivanos’s shoulders sagged. _I’m an architect, not a bricklayer!_ he wanted to shout after her. But it wouldn’t change her mind. No wonder that the Praetor of the _Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium_ hadn’t smiled but smirked when Obivanos had asked for the big man’s permission to woo his niece.  
  
The perfume had left his purse almost empty, and the vial with the dark blue glass threads was the latest fashion – certainly she had learnt during her stay in the _Germania Inferior_ that the glassmakers of the CCAA were famous for these and exported them even to Rome?  
   
And Rome ... Obivanos sighed deeply. Rome. An architect’s dream! Huge temples with roofs of copper and gold! The _thermae_! The Emperor’s palaces!  
   
A blow between his shoulder blades made him stumble out of his daydream. “Now, lad, that didn’t go well, eh?”

 

 

Gasping for breath, Obivanos turned, just to face the local building trade: Marcus Galba, the veteran, who ran a brick and tiles manufactory; Blussus, the carpenter, and Quigon, the blacksmith. All of them carried towels and oil flasks – obviously they had closed their workshops for the day and were on their way to the bathhouse.

[ ](http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b319/little_owl/LoveMagicStory1.jpg)

“Coming with us? After that cold shower you could do with a hot bath and a back rub!” Galba crowed.

Blussus snorted. “Shame about the flask, Builder. But, really, what do you want with such a bony witch? I’ve got a niece up in the mountains, a tasty lass who’d love to marry down here into the city. And she comes with a dowry of ten acres and two cows!”

Obivanos fought back the urge to shout – just barely. “Thank you very much for your offer, Blussus, but I’d like to marry to Rome! Or at least into a family with good connections there. Imagine what I could build in Rome! In the centre of the Empire!”  
   
“We’d rather you stay here and build another extension to our bathhouse,” the blacksmith said. “It turned out nice, and it was good business for all of us. And the Matrons’ shrine could do with an overhaul.”  
   
Obivanos cast a glance at the two little annexes to the bathhouse of Tolbiacum he had built last year.  
   
“In Rome they build _thermae_ as big as your whole town!” he growled. “That’s where I want to work! That’s where I can make a name for myself! Not in this...” Seeing the blacksmith frown down at him, he refrained from calling Tolbiacum a one-horse town. “There are simply not so many building sites here,” he finished lamely.  
   
“You really need a relaxing bath and a good cup of wine!” The blacksmith patted his shoulder. Being patronized by a trouser-wearing, bearded barbarian was the last thing Obivanos needed right now!  
   
He pushed the bunch of flowers in the man’s sooty paws – “Give it to your wife, your daughter or whomever” – and strode down the road in the other direction: to the inn. Because a cup of strong wine was what he actually needed right now! Or even better, a jug full.  
   
~~~  
   
Alypios, the Praetor’s scribe, gnawed at a goose drumstick, while listening to Obivanos’s complaints. At least, Alypios’s spare-time work seemed to pay well, because he had also ordered a jar of the good wine.  
   
“She’ll return to Rome in two months’ time,” Obivanos sighed into his jug of local beer. After the expense of the wasted perfume he had decided to be thrifty for the rest of the month. “And her family made a good deal of their money with marble imports! So they have all the business connections! If I just knew how to bring her round!”  
   
With a burp, Alypios dropped the bone onto the plate. “Really, Obivanos! I assume you know the saying ‘Better the first man in a village than the second man in Rome’? You’re young, make a name for yourself here before going to a place where there are dozens of architects. Young Cornelia will be a pain in the ass of any husband. Find yourself a lovely wife, not a banshee.”  
   
“A ‘tasty’ wife with two acres and ten cows? Or was it the other way round?” Obivanos dropped his face in his hands. “I don’t want to end my life in Germania Inferior, you know? Our dear Praetor and patron might consider the cold climate good for his health, but seriously: You don’t want to be buried here at the end of the world, do you?”  
   
“Actually, I found someone quite tasty right here in the kitchen.” With a grin, Alypios raised his cup at the serving girl, and she winked back.  
   
Obivanos groaned. He was lost. He would spend his life with bathhouse annexes and shrines for local goddesses! If he was lucky he could build a few houses in the CCAA and perhaps the villa in the Ardennes the Praetor planned as his old-age residence. But people would continue to study the works of Vitruvius instead of admiring the temples and palaces built by Obivanos Zenobios!  
   
“Well, really, Obivanos!” Alypios laughed. “If you’re so determined to ruin your life by the side of Cornelia the Harpy, perhaps I have a means for you to win her over.”  
   
“What means?”  
   
“Not here...”  
   
   
~~~  
   
   
“But that’s magic. It’s forbidden!” Obivanos stared at the tiny gold foil which Alypios was about to sell him.  
   
Alypios rolled his eyes. “Magic it is, but you’re not going to curse anyone but yourself if you bind Cornelia to you. So, do you want it or not?”  
   
Warily, Obivanos turned the gold foil around. Somebody had already scratched some ... symbols into it. These were no letters he was familiar with. “And it’s going to work?”  
   
“Of course.” Alypios shrugged. “Otherwise people wouldn’t do it, would they? Ask Venus to help you, bury the foil together with a ring in an old grave, and as long as the ring will lie hidden, Cornelia will be bound to you.” With a chuckle he added, “But for your own sake, don’t you forget to ask the Goddess to turn Cornelia into a loving wife while she’s at it.”  
   
Obivanos cast him a dirty look. “And how many rings did you bury until that maid at the inn fancied you?”  
   
Alypios brayed with laughter. When he sobered, he said, “As you can see, I once thought about a spell, but then I met my Bella, and all I had to invest was my good looks and natural charms.”  
   
Obivanos shuddered. Dear Bella must be into satyrs. “All right, I’ll take it.”  
   
   
~~~  
   
When Obivanos hurried home, the gold foil hidden in his fist, he ran into the building trade trio who were on their way back from the bathhouse. They were laughing loudly and didn’t look sober anymore, judging from how Galba and Blussus meandered down the hill, supporting each other. The blacksmith merrily waved the flowers about when he spotted Obivanos. Then they took the turn down to the inn. It looked like good business for Alypios’ Bella.  
   
~~~  
   
In his room, Obivanos stared at the tiny foil. He had to do it at night; and he must do it in secret. Alypios might think that only evil magic was punishable, but actually all binding spells and curses were punishable by death.  
   
Therefore, Obivanos hesitated to write his name on it. Or Cornelia’s. What would become of their great future in Rome if somebody found the foil? All right, the Cornelii were a huge family, but his own name was rare. Certainly the good people of Tolbiacum would remember him.  
   
No. All he would write down was the invocation of Venus, the Goddess of love: _Veneri_ , “to Venus”. He picked up his stylus and pressed the letters into the foil. There, done. At a second look, one of Alypios’s symbols looked like an “s” – and if one didn’t look properly, one might think he had written _Veneris_ , “of Venus”, which was nonsense, after all.

[](http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b319/little_owl/Liebeszauber_Zeichnung.jpg)  
   
Unhappy with his result, Obivanos stared at his spell foil, pondering if he should melt it down and cast a new one. For a moment he wondered if the blacksmith would accept this job. But the barbarian would probably be offended on behalf of their local goddesses and refuse or ruin the work. The man had done a good job with the iron grates for the windows, and he also had cast a bronze chain for the lamps, when the one Obivanos had ordered in the CCAA turned out to be scrap metal. But unlike Blussus, who wore tunics like a Roman and lived in a brick house, the blacksmith was a barbarian at heart, and those you could never trust...  
   
Decision made, Obivanos rolled up the gold foil. When saying his prayer he would apologize to the goddess for the misunderstanding concerning the grammar. Now he needed a ring. One worthy of both a goddess and the great future he hoped for. An iron ring would hardly do. Damn. He opened his box of belongings and took an even smaller box from it. There it was: his father’s gold ring; the only piece of jewellery Obivanos owned. He pushed it onto his finger; it was too wide. His father had worked all his life as a builder, learning his trade in the legions, working his way up from simple soldier to engineer. His hands had been as big as shovels and strong with broad fingers; Obivanos had started the trade carrying his father’s surveying equipment instead of carrying stones. Now, with his old man gone, Obivanos had to choose between joining the legions too or becoming a freelance architect by the grace of his patron.  
   
Building umpteen watchtowers of exactly the same look and size just to see them burnt down by barbarians wasn’t very appealing to him. He pulled the ring from his finger. “Forgive me, Father!” he murmured. “Please regard it as an investment into my future!”  
   
He hid ring and foil in his pouch and put on his travelling cloak. One good thing about Germania Inferior were her long summer days. The sun wasn’t down yet, and so the town gates were still open. All he had to do now was to leave the town, hide somewhere near the graves by the road and wait for the night.  
   
~~~  
   
Venus, the Goddess of Love, was combing her hair when she noticed an especially bright twinkle in her mirror. Surprised, she gave it a closer look: someone was making a much bigger offering than just wringing another pigeon’s neck. And it was close to the rim of her mirror – so it was made at the rim of the Roman world.  
   
Gold. Some young man, far, far away in the north, was offering up a golden ring and a wrapped-up gold foil ... in a graveyard?  
   
Taken aback, she watched the fellow more closely: didn’t he know that you offered up to Hades and the Gods of the Deceased there? But no, he called her name and asked her to accept his offering.  
   
“Cupid!” she called, “Have a look at that! _Cuuupid!_ Where on earth is the boy again!”  
   
“Coming!” Out of breath, the boy flew down from a high cloud.  
   
“What mischief have you been doing up there?” the goddess demanded to know.  
   
“Oh, nothing, Mom, really.”  
   
“Spill it!”  
   
“Hum, Uncle Apollo just showed me a new trick for long-distance shooting...”  
   
“What did I tell you about Uncle Apollo and his arrows?”  
   
“Never ever touch them, because then I’ll give my clients The Itch, and nobody likes The Itch, and then the humans blame you for a venereal disease and offer up all the good stuff to Uncle Apollo,” the boy rattled off. Ruffling his feathers, he added indignantly, “I swear I didn’t touch the pestilence arrows this time. I even put up my own mark!”  
   
“Well, well.” Pacified, Venus stroked her son’s head, “Now look here, we’ve got a new client! This one never offered up to me before, and he brought gold.”  
   
Together, they listened to Obivanos’s prayers.  
   
“Oh, no, Mommy, not another one of these ‘Let me marry rich and famous’ types!” Cupid whined. “Why can’t he ask Auntie Fortuna? Or Uncle Mercury? That’s where business matters should go!”  
   
Venus heaved a disheartened sigh. “He’s obviously not in love with her. Not even a little bit.”  
   
“And if this ‘Cornelia or any other girl from Rome with connections to the building trade’ doesn’t like him either, she’ll be terribly hard to find – and to hit!” Cupid pouted.  
   
“I wonder if I should accept his offer at all,” Venus pondered aloud. “On the other hand, if I do, we could generate some more followers in this area and take a share of the offerings market from these annoying Matrons! They’re way too smug anyway!”  
   
“See if I care...”  
   
“What was that, Son?” Venus frowned at her offspring. “Who will believe in us and bring us offerings if we don’t prove our power? Now, you will go there, and make sure that this young man gets his Cornelia! And see to it that they’ll be happy, so that they’ll praise us and bring us more offerings and convince others to offer up to us and not to the Matrons!”  
   
“But, Mom, that’s darned far, and look, now it's starting to rain there, too!”  
   
“That’s nothing but a drizzle.”  
   
“But a cold one! And it’s in Germania! She’s full of gods who throw hammers and stuff!”  
   
“About time that we show these barbarians whose territory it is!” the goddess decreed. “Off you go, and don’t dawdle!”  
   
~~~  
   
Now he wished he had touched the pestilence arrows to give everybody The Itch, including his mother. Pouting and cursing under his breath, Cupid got ready for a trip to the north. He put on a helmet (one could never know with the hammer gods up there), coated his wings with additional wax and put on the goggles Aunt Minerva had given him for flights in bad weather conditions. He packed a few extra arrows, too. One could never know if one wouldn’t see a would-be couple who really deserved one’s services – or someone who deserved a prank.

[](http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b319/little_owl/LoveMagicStory2.jpg)  
   
After a drink of nectar, he set out for his latest mission, still muttering to himself about leaving this Obivanos Zenobios and his ambitions to the pesky Matrons and their fruit baskets.  
   
~~~  
   
Cupid was lucky this time: no one threw a hammer at him or ran him over with a goat chariot. But, man, this had been a long flight! Exhausted, he dropped onto the roof of the biggest grave monument present and cast a look around. The land was as flat as a board here, with a line of hills on the horizon, which looked dull, too, if you compared them with the hinterland of Rome. And the town? Well, it was situated on the crossroads of two of the huge streets running through the Empire. But the place itself looked as boring as any _vicus_ in any province.  
   
All right, he understood why that Zenobios wanted to leave this place. Shooting at him was an act of mercy, actually. Cupid nocked a golden arrow and shot the man straight in the back. There. Now the fellow would really love his Cornelia as soon as the other arrow hit her.  
   
But where to find the girl in question? Cupid squinted at the town. Find the girl’s traces: places she made sparkle with excitement about having an admirer... none. Exchanged gifts: well, there was a faint glow in the middle of the town. So the Zenobios was a miser too, one who never gave his girl big presents?  
   
Already regretting the waste of an arrow, Cupid flew to the town square. The glow came from the pavement: radiated by a destroyed vial and the faint smell of an expensive perfume.  
   
“Now, what happened to you?” the god asked the shards, and they whispered a sad tale of how they were chosen and bought with utmost care, brought from the CCAA in a padded little box, just to be smashed and stomped on by a hoity-toity bitch.  
   
 _Even the flowers she kept longer than us!_ the shards whimpered.  
   
Flowers! Cupid slapped his forehead. Of course! Every admirer brought flowers! In the oily drops of the perfume he spotted the memory of a blue bouquet. That was a lead! He scanned the town for the whereabouts of these flowers. There, in a big house down the hill – or what bump passed for a hill here.  
   
Flying closer, he wondered about the house. A hoity-toity bitch from a good Roman family wouldn’t dwell under the thatch of a local inn, would she? Because the building was an inn, stinking of cheap wine and the local barley brew. Inside, they were singing and laughing and singing again: rough male voices, just a single girl’s soprano among them.  
   
Indecisive, he squatted down on a roof opposite the front door and waited. There, the flowers had been moved inside! As a very young god, he couldn’t see through walls completely, but when he concentrated on his lead, the bouquet became a brighter spot inside, like the flame of an oil lamp behind a curtain.  
   
But what was this? Now tiny sparks left the cluster one by one. Somebody was giving the flowers away!  
   
Oh no! How much longer was he supposed to sit here in the rain, waiting for some snooty Cornelia so he could make her marry a career-obsessed builder, while she was giving his flowers away to a bunch of bawling barbarians!  
   
He swung down from the roof, put an arrow on the bowstring and kicked open the door to the inn. There was his target: a bunch of cornflowers! And he shot at the figure who held it. Who turned out to be a tall, bearded barbarian. Said barbarian looked a bit baffled at the open door and scratched his chest where the arrow had hit him right in the heart.  
   
 _Shit!_  
   
Glad that he couldn’t be seen by mortals, Cupid jumped back onto the roof to think. He had mucked up his mission! Now he was in for another spanking! Damn! Once shot, he couldn’t take an arrow back.  
   
What now? Certainly that Zenobios wouldn’t give his mother another gold ring to thank her for making him pine over a barbarian!  
   
All he could do now was to shoot at some more people without dedicating the arrows to anyone special. Perhaps then, a few lonely fellows would ask Mom for guidance and...  
   
An icy hand grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. Later, Cupid would deny the girlish shriek, but shriek he did, and then he was shaken so hard that his goggles fell off and his teeth rattled. When he was set down and dared turn, he was facing three women – goddesses no doubt, since they could see him (glare at him, actually) and touch him as well.  
   
The youngest one held a wobbling stack of three fruit baskets, while the middle-aged one was slapping the palm of her left hand with a gnarled mace, and the old one held him by the wing. “What do you think you’re doing!” she hissed, “Shooting at our local lads!”

[](http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b319/little_owl/LoveMagicStory3.jpg)  
   
“I mean no harm!” Cupid held up his hands in a placating gesture, “It’s all about love, actually!”  
   
“We know who you are, you little shit!” the middle-aged goddess growled. “Who are you trying to set the blacksmith up with!”  
   
“That ... hum, that ... was a tiny ... err, mistake...”  
   
“Who?” And the eldest ripped a few feathers off his wing.  
   
“Ow! If you must know, some Zenobios! The architect! He asked for it!” And with that, Cupid slipped down the roof and fled, before the Matron could get another handful of feathers. He was leaving bemused goddesses behind.  
   
“He asked for it?” he heard the young one say.  
   
“The builder? Who would have thought?”  
   
“Who indeed!” The old one snarled. “We'd better check if he’s worth it!”  
   
~~~  
   
When the gate opened at first daylight, Obivanos slunk into town, wrapped in his soaked coat, cursing himself. Certainly he had brought death upon him in the form of fever and pneumonia – instead of the bright future he had hoped for!  
   
And what a horrible night it had been! As he was saying his prayers in the graveyard, he had suddenly felt something akin to a stab in his back, and later he couldn’t get rid of the feeling that he was being watched; scrutinised even! Certainly he had stirred up a malevolent ghost as he buried the ring and foil in the grave. Now everything would be going downhill from here, until he would join the deceased in said graveyard!  
   
The rain had been the first evidence: it was getting colder and harder with every hour, seeping even through the canopies of the oaks along the road, and now he had not a single dry thread on his body.  
   
The good citizens of Tolbiacum seemed to make use of the rainy morning for a lie-in. Only over a few houses thin threads of smoke curled sluggishly, just to be washed apart. Normally, the peasants would be up and about, the traders on their way to the CCAA...  
   
The blacksmith was one of the very few who opened their workshops at all.  
   
Shuffling along, Obivanos heard the man call, “Good Goddesses, Builder! What’s happened to you?”  
   
“Just don’t ask.” Really, he wouldn’t regale the man with the tale of his epic stupidity!  
   
“You look like death warmed over!” the blacksmith said. “Come inside, I’ve got the fire going.”  
   
A change of clothes later, Obivanos sat by the forge and sipped hot mead from a big cup. He felt very grateful for the unexpected help. The blacksmith didn’t seem to be in a hurry to start his work. Instead he bustled about in the back of the house, and when he returned, he was carrying two pots of porridge: “We might as well have breakfast right now.”  
   
Obivanos had never been fond of the local food, but on this wretched morning, even oats looked appetising. The oatmeal was cooked with milk and a generous spoonful of honey, and he couldn’t help humming with delight. “My thanks to the housewife!”  
   
“Oh, there isn’t any,” the blacksmith said. “It’s all self-made.” And with that, he gave Obivanos a grin full of laugh lines, and Obivanos suddenly wondered why he had never noticed before what a pleasant fellow Quigon the blacksmith was.  
   
~~~  
   
Three days after her son had returned half-plucked by the grisly Matrons, Venus grew impatient. There wasn’t a single sign of a grateful offering coming from Tolbiacum! Shouldn’t the architect be happily united with his Cornelia by now? And if this young man didn’t know how to offer up properly, a young lady of good upbringing certainly knew whom she owed a good portion of incense!  
   
But seeing her son tongue-tied and trying hard to look unsuspicious made her wary. Had he really shot his arrows before the Matrons caught him? Had he been to Tolbiacum at all? With Cupid, one could never know...  
   
So she stared into the mirror, saying, “Now, young Cornelia, does your lover keep you so busy that you can’t offer up even at your house altar, or what’s going on?”  
   
The mirror blurred, and a moment later, it revealed the image of a young lady stomping around in a lavishly decorated atrium. She was pulling her hair, shouting, “How could he do this to me! The whole town is laughing at me! He should be lovesick, devastated about my refusal! Instead he moves in with this... this... Will you stop laughing, Uncle!” And shrieking with anger, she fled the room.  
   
Venus cast a glance over her shoulder. Cupid had gone into hiding.  
   
But curious about her client’s move, she consulted the mirror again. “Obivanos Zenobios, where are you?” This time, in the mirror appeared the view of a young man’s hindquarters, and said young man was happily thrusting away. But the legs he lay between made Venus pause. These were a man’s legs: hairy, with knobbly knees, muscular calves and big feet.  
   
She adjusted her mirror to get a better view. Her client, Obivanos Zenobios, who had wanted to marry a Roman girl so badly – he was shagging a man! And a big, bearded barbarian, at that! These two were enjoying their love-making, moaning endearments, stroking each other and radiating such happiness that Cupid must have landed two direct hits. These two would stay together – whatever that meant for Obivanos’s career or the blacksmith’s workshop.  
   
Amazed, she was watching the lovers – until suddenly her mirror blurred, and runes appeared on its surface:

  
_  
**We’re sorry to inform you that this view isn’t available any longer in your country. The Three Matrons don’t grant you the rights to perve at their followers.**  
_

   
Dropping her mirror, Venus shrieked: “CUPID! Report! At once!”


End file.
